Working hard for an open, competitive economy, we’ve given ourselves more capacity to pay for the things most

important to our society: education, health, programs to tackle disadvantage.

We’ve made ourselves part of our region, bringing our society and our economy to Asia.

We’ve opened our society to the world, rejecting a narrow nationalism based on ethnicity for a dynamic, multicultural

spirit.

We have been the beneficiaries of widespread migration from Europe, particularly in the post-war period.

We’ve worked hard to build a rules-based, peaceful order in our region.

Australia has been a leader in helping bring together the Asia-Pacific region.

Through institutions like APEC, and membership of the G20 and East Asia Summit.

We’ve been active in building closer relationships and new cross-cultural linkages in our region.

Our relationship with Indonesia is a stand-out on this front.

Our economic ties with our northern neighbour continue to grow apace.

Which shows what can be achieved by a partnership between a young democracy with the largest Muslim population in the world, and a longer-established democracy with a very different social and cultural history.

Australia is also an economic leader.

As Europe and the United States have struggled through the global financial crisis, Australia has avoided a recession.

There are many reasons for that, like our rich mineral inheritance.

But fundamentally, our success has come from our economic openness.

Our commitment to trade is what has made us relevant to the extraordinary industrialisation taking place in China, and other parts of Asia.

Over many decades now, we have been committed to international security.

We were involved in the birth of our system of modern institutions in the ashes of the Second World War.

Over the years, we have deployed over 65,000 personnel to 50 UN and other multilateral peace and security operations.

Today we have over 3,000 people deployed on missions overseas.

Our commitment to global peace and security is why we are seeking to win a seat on the UN Security Council in elections to be held in October.

We believe we’ve played a valuable role over many years — and can continue to provide useful insights, particularly

given unique place in the Asia-Pacific.

EU-Australia relationship

Both the EU and Australia should be proud of the contribution we’ve made over the past 50 years.

The world today is more peaceful, in many ways, and we both bear some of the credit for that.

But peace and understanding must still be fought for.

We live in a world of intense and dramatic change.

The best way to respond to that is to work together on the serious issues we face.

We are working together in the World Trade Organization, and in the G20, to support a liberal, rules-based order.

We have a common understanding of the importance of tackling climate change.

Both of us are acutely aware that the impact of climate change will fall hardest on some of those states least able to

adapt to its effects.

We are both providing practical help to Pacific island countries to deal with the realities of climate change.

Page 3 of 4 50th anniversary of relations with the European Union, speech, 24 May 2012, Australi...